When launching a game console, you need to lead with the games.

Microsoft loved itself some TV in the Xbox One unveiling. It wants not only more TV, but TV all to itself.

The past week probably hasn't gone exactly as Microsoft had hoped. More than 8 million people watched the reveal of the new Xbox One, but the general tone of the commentary from pundits and players in the days since has been overwhelmingly negative. Gamers on countless message boards and Twitter conversations are up in arms about the lack of demonstrated games, unsettled issues surrounding used games and DRM, and a host of other annoyances big and small. Mainstream columnists have focused on potential privacy concerns for the "always on" Kinect that has to be connected to the system. Investors have seemed largely unimpressed, sending Sony's stock surging while keeping Microsoft's level in the wake of the reveal.

Definitely not Microsoft's ideal start, but perhaps it's what the company should have been expecting given the odd, scattershot focus the Xbox One reveal took. Yes, Microsoft avoided Sony's mistake of failing to show the casing for the system, but it failed to emulate Sony's focus in presenting a bevy of technology demonstrations and playable live demos. Compare that to Microsoft's weak software showing: a few uninspiring seconds of generic, Forza car-porn; a confusing, unexplained TV/game hybrid from the creators of Alan Wake; and unfinished wireframe athletes from EA Sports. The only game to get significant time and attention at the Xbox One reveal was Activision's new Call of Duty: Ghosts. That reveal showed off the improved performance of the system, sure, but in an extremely predictable fashion. The display didn't seem in any way exclusive to the Xbox One (as opposed to Sony's exciting Killzone demonstration).

These short snippets of actual gaming were absolutely overwhelmed by talk of the Xbox One's non-gaming features. Microsoft led the hour-long presentation with almost 10 minutes on how the system could be used to easily watch live TV, as if being able to switch inputs without picking up a remote control was the killer app that would cause millions of people to rush out to spend hundreds of dollars on the console. (Oh, and a lot of those features only work in America anyway). Five more minutes were wasted on announcing a Halo television series that had nothing to do with the Xbox One. The series could have easily been announced as successfully through a YouTube video. Even more time was wasted on announcing a "historic" partnership with the NFL that pointedly avoided any concrete discussion of how that partnership would actually improve the couch potato experience in the slightest.

The post-reveal messaging has been just as unfocused, offering confusing, incomplete, or contradictory answers on a number of key questions. How will used games work on the system? Microsoft isn't saying. How often does the system need to connect to the Internet? "Every 24 hours" says Microsoft's Phil Harrison; "forget he said that" says Xbox PR. Should I worry about the Kinect being required and "always on"? No, we have great privacy protection that we aren't discussing in detail. Still not satisfied? Well, it turns out you can turn it off, but we won't have more details until later.

Microsoft must have seen these questions coming. Further, they should have known that—in the absence of any interesting gaming announcements or interesting, next-generation hardware advances to discuss—the attention of the press and gamers would be fixated on the lack of concrete answers. Nebulous promises of "more information coming soon" only fan the flames and increase the pressure on Microsoft's new system.

It's enough to make you wonder what audience Microsoft was actually targeting with its Xbox One reveal strategy. Definitely not gamers, as the lack of game demos and concrete answers to important game-related questions should make clear. You could argue the company was targeting general media consumers, who might be drawn in by talk of integrated TV and Skype capabilities. But that audience seems unlikely to be closely following a console reveal event. Microsoft might have been trying to target investors and analysts with discussions of exclusive EA, Activision, and NFL deals, but if that was the case, the immediate jump in Sony's stock price makes that strategy seem like a failure.

No matter how much Microsoft is positioning the Xbox One as an all-in-one home entertainment center, it is still, at its heart, a game console. That's what makes it different from the smart TVs and Roku boxes and all the other lower-priced devices that can already hook up to your living room screen. And when you're introducing a game console, you really should lead with the games. When you don't, you get the kind of reaction Microsoft has gotten to the Xbox One—overwhelmingly characterized by anger and confusion rather than wonder and awe.

The silver lining for Microsoft in all of this is that there's a good chance this could all being forgotten in a few weeks. Microsoft's E3 showing will doubtlessly focus more on games, including a promised 15 exclusive titles. That event could do a lot to take attention away from the incidental issues that have dominated the conversation thus far. But you only get one chance at a first impression, as the saying goes, and Microsoft wasted it. The Xbox One reveal was the functional equivalent of a throat-clearing, highlighting incidental features rather than those that will be driving the purchasing decisions of the console's core audience.

Promoted Comments

With E3 only a few weeks away, there is no reason to have doted on games during this event. So, the question becomes "Why did Microsoft decide to announce now instead of at E3?" and that is likely because of the content side of XBox One being a large focus. Maybe the "One" means "All in One" and there will be different SKUs for other models... like a games only version or a content only version. In any case, I was at least (if not actually more) interested in hearing the content side of things than the games... my wife and I use our current XBox for content far more than games... with a BR player and a strong content story, we likely won't be getting a PS4 or other console (for the past two generations at least, we've bought all of them... starting with the PS and going up... PS2, PS3, XBox, GameCube, Wii, XBox360) because the XBox One will support everything we need.... finally... in one console.

It's funny...a lot of gamers and game news outlets are attributing Sony's stock price increase last week to the Xbox One reveal/used games controversy, but it sure seems like Wall Street and business news oulets are attributing the jump to news breaking of Sony possibly spinning off its music and movie division, which happened before the XBox One event started. Check it out...

The failure seems to be confusion over what the product is. Is it an all-in-one entermainment box, or is it a gaming console with additional features tacked on that will make spending a couple hundred bucks more pallatable.

As an entertainment box with 'games' becoming a side business, this device would be crazy expensive when you consider alternatives. (yes I know a pricepoint is not known yet, but we can guess the range)

As a gaming console with features it may be worth it.

Promoting it as an all-in-one electronic to a gamer centric audience is bound to fail. Promoting the features of a gaming console without touching meaningfully on games is also bound to fail.

Xbox has to clarify their produce message asap or the xbox will have marketing issues like the WiiU does. (granted the WiiU has different marketing issues, they are still related to the marketing of the platform)

Honestly, Sony and Microsoft BOTH deserve to have feces flung at them for their miserable "reveals".

Both sucked. Both had a significant lack of "solid" information. Both utilized smoke and mirrors and a lot of vague language. Maybe Sony did a little better, but (ready for it?) that's like saying Stalin was better than Hitler.

Every time you have a cache miss and need to get something from main memory on the ps4, you're going to hit the higher latency.

I'll ask you the same question I asked Situation Soap: What are the latency numbers in nanoseconds for DDR3 and GDDR5?

You know, I can't find any reliable numbers currently, this is from a general google search trying to find latency values of gddr5.

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make that difference?

(Thanks for looking, BTW. I looked myself and couldn't find anything, but it's been annoying me to no end to see people come into discussions basically saying "GDDR5, shame about that latency" while sagely shaking their head and clucking their tongue but offering no numbers to illustrate their concern.)

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make the difference?

That's a very good question, and to be honest, it's going to come down to situation specific moments.

I do wonder what the BW difference will mean in terms of texture resolution.

I can tell you this much though, I doubt it will be something noticeable in first few generations of titles for the consoles.

Aside from exclusives, the hardware differences really aren't going to matter much at all.

This isn't a case of Cell vs Xenon, where the architecture is significantly different and requiring significant changes.

We will write around the platform differences as needed, and most titles will be damn near identical. So it comes down to what else does the box do for you? The one bonus is PC ports should suck less now.

Honestly, Sony and Microsoft BOTH deserve to have feces flung at them for their miserable "reveals".

Both sucked. Both had a significant lack of "solid" information. Both utilized smoke and mirrors and a lot of vague language. Maybe Sony did a little better, but (ready for it?) that's like saying Stalin was better than Hitler.

I agree with the tone of the article. There are many questions that need answering and Microsoft's responses have hinted at something that I haven't overlooked that internally they don't even seem to be on the same page. I've watched and read conflicting messages coming from different representatives from their company. If they don't internally agree, what does that say about their business models?

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make that difference?

(Thanks for looking, BTW. I looked myself and couldn't find anything, but it's been annoying me to no end to see people come into discussions basically saying "GDDR5, shame about that latency" while sagely shaking their head and clucking their tongue but offering no numbers to illustrate their concern.)

IOW, GDDR5 is bandwidth optimized which is why there is a general wisdom that GDDR5 will have higher than expected latency compared to DDR3. Average latency will probably still be lower than DDR3 because of 2.5x the GHz but I don't know.

"No matter how much Microsoft is positioning the Xbox One as an all-in-one home entertainment center, it is still, at its heart, a game console"

Perhaps this is a too-easily accepted assumption?

Given the (calculated) emphasis on the "HOME TV ENTERTAINMENT! - TALK TO KINECT TO TURN IT ON!" angle -- which they absolutely must have thought about at length and planned out in tedious detail -- I'm not so sure that, as time goes on, gaming will occupy the primary focus of their efforts. especially if content providers start opening up the instant on-demand floodgates to premium content.

Fair point. But if they are selling it primarily as an entertainment device and not a gaming console, than Kinect channel changing and some vague NFL partnership are not really enough to get people excited either, I'd argue...

Agreed, especially because of all of the competition that's proliferating. IMHO, the fabled Holy Grail of all-in-one, everything-in-a-box, it-slices-and-dices-and-makes-julian-fries Entertainotron 5000 is so much overblown hooey.

Don't get me wrong, I recognize a lot of utility in being able to access a variety of entertainment sources through a single portal. I use my Samsung SmartTv to watch Netflix and Amazon Instant Video all the time. However, I see a bunch of natural barriers to the concept exploding beyond a few core functions. I really don't have any interest in a Kinecty thing being awkwardly nailed to my wall just so I can say some commands to it and wave through pages of movie options. I turned that same functionality off on my smarttv soon after buying it. I also don't have any interest in jumping around playing fruit ninja in my jammies.

My long-winded underlying point is that I don't see the market for Entertainotrons being as broad as Microsoft/et al's marketing departments would like us to believe. I think the much more focused AppleTv / Roku / SmartTv products out there already are right on the money. Granted, there may be some killer app waiting out there to revolutionize lives of the couch potato set -- but I just can't imagine what it would be -- beyond just a handy portal to let me get stuff from Hulu and Netflix.

Aside from exclusives, the hardware differences really aren't going to matter much at all.

This isn't a case of Cell vs Xenon, where the architecture is significantly different and requiring significant changes.

We will write around the platform differences as needed, and most titles will be damn near identical. So it comes down to what else does the box do for you? The one bonus is PC ports should suck less now.

At the same time, since the difference will largely come down to 12 shader units vs. 18 shader units using almost exactly the same GPU hardware and the same CPU hardware (ignoring for the moment speculation that Sony will only be reserving 1 CPU core while MS reserves 2), then it should be trivial to optimize for the Xbone and then crank up the settings for the PS4 for minimal effort.

Aside from exclusives, the hardware differences really aren't going to matter much at all.

This isn't a case of Cell vs Xenon, where the architecture is significantly different and requiring significant changes.

We will write around the platform differences as needed, and most titles will be damn near identical. So it comes down to what else does the box do for you? The one bonus is PC ports should suck less now.

At the same time, since the difference will largely come down to 12 shader units vs. 18 shader units using almost exactly the same GPU hardware and the same CPU hardware (ignoring for the moment speculation that Sony will only be reserving 1 CPU core while MS reserves 2), then it should be trivial to optimize for the Xbone and then crank up the settings for the PS4 for minimal effort.

That may happen, but I think it's unlikely. If it's something that can be achieved cheaply, yet with a big payoff, sure. If it requires significant extra work for a small payoff, I doubt it.

Time will tell, but I think in this case, it will really be a case of "Buy the system with the exclusives you want"

when i sit back and ponder this article again, one question keeps nagging me:

if MS is trying to bust out and go mass market with a whiz-bang, grandma-in-her-living-room one-stop entertainment shop box -- i.e., a much cooler Roku -- think about the HUGE uphill battle they're facing to completely change existing widespread consumer perception of what an "Xbox" is... Pretty much everyone knows what an xbox is -- either they play it, know someone who does, or - more commonly, I would venture - bought one for a spouse/friend/kids/etc. so everyone in the universe thinks "gaming" when they hear "xbox". how difficult is it going to be to re-engineer that into a mass market perception of "xbox" means "entertainment hub"?

That means Mexico, Canada and Brazil as well? Or do you means the USA?

Not meaning to troll or anything, but remember: America = ContinentUSA = Country

There is no continent called "America", and it's more than "Americans" who call the USA "America".

Or let's get into the whole Europe and Asia vs Eurasia as well... /sigh totally missed my point.

It was just a friendly FYI as to not alienate us latins, since we are kinda touchy about the whole "America is not USA" topic.

When people talk about Estados Unidos Mexicanos and people from Estados Unidos Mexicanos, they say "Mexico" and "Mexicans". When they talk about the United States of America and people from the United States of America, they say "America" and "Americans". I don't see what's controversial about this.

I still think it's likely that Sony fucked themselves over based on you know, math and knowledge of actual computer architectural design decisions. If transfer bandwidth rates were an important point for standard app or game-level RAM usage, don't you think literally anyone at all would have built a Motherboard that utilized GDDR5 instead of DDR3 for standard memory before now?

GDDR5 has been relatively low capacity compared to DDR3. The PS4 is using SR new high capacity GDDR5 memory to hit 8GB on a 256 bit wide bus. The other factor is that GDDR5 is designed to soldered on to the same PCB as the host chip. In other word it does not allow for DIMMs. These two factors severely limit how much memory a system using GDDR5 can have on one bus. With 4 GB of memory and 128 bit wide buses the norm nowadays, GDDR5 has not been attractive for mother board usage.

It's possible that Sony's going to be able to release a compiler that allows for contiguously allocating significant blocks of memory that doesn't suffer from serious out of memory issues or massive problems slowdowns due to needing to cycle blocks of memory, but considering the pain of developing for Cell, I think that's unlikely.

Mostly unnecessary due to the 4 MB of L2 cache for the CPU's. Sure, a lot will be sent to the L2 cache in one burst but the cache controller is free to remove the unnecessary cache lines afterward.

Also where are you getting the out of memory idea? At worst memory reads will be unaligned.

The point is that Sony may have spent a whole bunch more per RAM chip to functionally deliver the same or poorer performance than the more run of the mill memory found on the XBONE.

Bandwidth is a bottleneck for graphics. Sony chose wisely to focus resources there. Sure, GDDR5's higher latency may hurt pure CPU tests but the PS4 has to deal with shaders, ROPs and TMUs all wanting to read large chunks of memory as well. It was a wise decision to utilize GDDR5 considering the system's graphics heavy focus.

Aside from exclusives, the hardware differences really aren't going to matter much at all.

This isn't a case of Cell vs Xenon, where the architecture is significantly different and requiring significant changes.

We will write around the platform differences as needed, and most titles will be damn near identical. So it comes down to what else does the box do for you? The one bonus is PC ports should suck less now.

At the same time, since the difference will largely come down to 12 shader units vs. 18 shader units using almost exactly the same GPU hardware and the same CPU hardware (ignoring for the moment speculation that Sony will only be reserving 1 CPU core while MS reserves 2), then it should be trivial to optimize for the Xbone and then crank up the settings for the PS4 for minimal effort.

That may happen, but I think it's unlikely. If it's something that can be achieved cheaply, yet with a big payoff, sure. If it requires significant extra work for a small payoff, I doubt it.

Time will tell, but I think in this case, it will really be a case of "Buy the system with the exclusives you want"

Or "buy the system that treats you less like a criminal and more like a customer," but depending on what Sony ends up doing that may be a null result.

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make that difference?[/quote]

For data in the ESRAM, yes. The XBox 360 has 10 MB of eDRAM which is functionally the same. The XBox One should be able to do something like 'free' 4x MSAA for a frame buffer in it. The problem is that such buffers would monopolize most of the eSRAM. There would be little left over for textures, or code.

One other thing is that for being on die, the ESRAM is quiet slow. I would have expected bandwidth figure near 1 TB/s.

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make that difference?

For data in the ESRAM, yes. The XBox 360 has 10 MB of eDRAM which is functionally the same. The XBox One should be able to do something like 'free' 4x MSAA for a frame buffer in it. The problem is that such buffers would monopolize most of the eSRAM. There would be little left over for textures, or code.

One other thing is that for being on die, the ESRAM is quiet slow. I would have expected bandwidth figure near 1 TB/s.[/quote]

Anything I've seen online regarding the ESRAM BW is estimated/guesses only. I haven't seen a hard figure on it yet.

I guess the target audience is someone who doesn't already have an entertainment system?... I mean, I've searched the web on my 'intelligent' TV, and it's clunky...not the surfing per se', but the fact that the interface is across the room...it's big and it's awkward. Same with the apps. I find myself using my iPad and my MBA, for most things, and if I want the bigger interface, I just use either of those devices and project them through an Apple TV using Airplay. I don't use many of the apps on my Apple TV, and I don't use most of the apps on the 360 either for the same reason...awkwardness. And as far as doing two things at the same time on the same interface across the room, that would seem to me to be just as awkward. As far as switching goes, that might be easier than the auto switching that my receiver does...which requires pushing a button...although that's pretty easy to do. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that someday, I can walk into the room and my entertainment system welcomes me with my appointments, the news, and my song for the day...but, that's not was I saw from the launch. For me, I'm hoping that they'll talk about the games more come E3, as the games demo didn't thrill me that much...but I imagine it's just because it's new...don't get me wrong, I was excited to see what the console had to offer, but for me, I just didn't see the value proposition...

I wonder, about the "free MSAA". Did that ever pan out significantly on the 360?

Yes and no.

Early on it was common and worked pretty much as advertised.

During the XB360 life span, deferred render became popular which uses more 720p buffer than can comfortably fit into the eDRAM. So several games went without it or just used MSAA on one of the buffers.

*shrugs* Personally I really don't care. Whichever console allows me to unplug it, and take it up to a cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota where you aren't getting jack for internet connection is who wins my money. The occasional trip up there and being stuck inside because of a downpour has made my PS3, Wii, and former 360 (before it RRoDed on an update) invaluable. If Microsoft requires a logon at power on, which I'm suspicious of because of the "every 24 hours thing, then they lost one sale there. We'll see what happens.

Given the specs of the XBOX one i would say it's more like a WII U type of deal.. IE it is cheap and there is nothing wrong with that unless you are in direct competition with other entities for the same audience.

DDR3 System ram? check32MB E-Dram? Check (this accordin to the block diagrams floating around only seems accessable to the GPU)Cut down Radeon 7770? Check

PS4 looks to have at least 50% more GPU power and have significantly more bandwidth to deal with (based upon wired's teardown of the Xbox One and what Sony has told us).

DDR3 may have lower latency but it does not have nearly the clock speed nor bandwidth to keep up with GDDR5 in graphical applications)

MS is focused on how best to get you to pay for every little service and have shown themselves to be the KINGS of nickel and diming people to death. Gaming is clearly way down the list

Want to play muliplayer? pay a fee.Want to stream content you already pay a fee for? Pay a fee.Want to use social services? Pay a fee.Want to sell a game? Someone has got to pay a fee.

MS looks to have effectively lowerd the gaming bar this time around....

In the last iteration they got hurt because the PS3 had a blue-ray player, and the Xbox only had a DVD player. Blue-ray players were $300 at the time, and a PS3 was similarly priced. So some people chose a PS3 because of its non-gaming capabilities, knowing they wanted either a PS3 or an Xbox.

I worry they're fighting the last war.

Bluray players at the time of release of the PS3 were about $1K. This made the PS3 one of the cheaper blu-ray players around. This actually hurt them as a gaming console because it made the thing cost more than the 360.

The confusion is only in the mind of the reviewer, who happens to be an avid gaimer.

But you have to at least understand the world from Microsoft's eye's, to understand if they are failing or not. You also have to understand Marketing 101.

Five or so years ago, Microsoft made a fundamental corporate strategic decision to move from Enterprises as their prime customer to a balanced mix of Enterprises and Consumers.

They then segregated their Consumer Market into as number of categories. One of these categories was Home & Entertainment. They then segregated that Home & Entertainment segment into primarily gamers and primarily TV viewers.

Get it? I hope so. Because the author of this article doesn't have a clue about all this.

So, how can Microsoft best serve all these market segments, subsegments, and so on?

That question, and its answer, played the fundamental role into this latest months' announcement about Xbox One.

Aside from exclusives, the hardware differences really aren't going to matter much at all.

This isn't a case of Cell vs Xenon, where the architecture is significantly different and requiring significant changes.

We will write around the platform differences as needed, and most titles will be damn near identical. So it comes down to what else does the box do for you? The one bonus is PC ports should suck less now.

At the same time, since the difference will largely come down to 12 shader units vs. 18 shader units using almost exactly the same GPU hardware and the same CPU hardware (ignoring for the moment speculation that Sony will only be reserving 1 CPU core while MS reserves 2), then it should be trivial to optimize for the Xbone and then crank up the settings for the PS4 for minimal effort.

That may happen, but I think it's unlikely. If it's something that can be achieved cheaply, yet with a big payoff, sure. If it requires significant extra work for a small payoff, I doubt it.

If PC ports of the same software already offer settings sliders for things like draw distance, anti-aliasing, texture detail, etc, how hard can it really be for the devs to hard-code those increased settings right into the PS4 port?

So, how can Microsoft best serve all these market segments, subsegments, and so on?

That question, and its answer, played the fundamental role into this latest months' announcement about Xbox One.

Don't believe me? Take a basic course on Marketing!

Having taken more than my fair share of marketing courses, I can tell you that an initial reveal of a product that effectively ignores the most vocal and loyal customers (gamers) is a very bad idea. Nobody is faulting MS for wanting to show the new features, but doing it at the expense of the console's primary purpose (play games) was a mistake.

Even with the low ratio of attention given to games at the reveal, you came away with a pretty good idea of what the gaming experience will be like, because they did tell you about the new hardware features (mandatory Kinect, impulse triggers). Detailed specs aren't that important, just something for fanboys to fight over, because you know that games will be optimized to run well regardless, that's the whole point of standardized console hardware.

That they left so many mysteries with issues like DRM and connectivity were my only complaints, but the lack of gameplay reveals isn't entirely damning, because face it, if they showed gameplay for any of the games they talked about, it would have looked a lot like to day's games with better graphics.

Personally, I feel that the messaging around the new Xbone was either Einstein-like brilliance, or a complete cluster.

I suspect we will find out which at E3, i.e. M$ will come out swinging, put all our fears to rest and savor the positive publicity spin, but I tend to believe we will see Hanlon's razor at work:Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I expect that they had a game plan which was blown out of the water by Sony's PS4 announcement/ associated reactions from the public and they never were able to recover.

So until I can find any latency numbers, I can't say how much of a difference it will make. Know though, that the ESRAM will also exacerbate this lead for the Xbox, while cutting down the bandwidth lead for smaller transfers.

Is 32MB of ESRAM enough to make that difference?

For data in the ESRAM, yes. The XBox 360 has 10 MB of eDRAM which is functionally the same. The XBox One should be able to do something like 'free' 4x MSAA for a frame buffer in it. The problem is that such buffers would monopolize most of the eSRAM. There would be little left over for textures, or code.

One other thing is that for being on die, the ESRAM is quiet slow. I would have expected bandwidth figure near 1 TB/s.

[/quote]Rough calculation: two 720p frame buffers take ~8 MB. two 1080p frame buffers take ~16 MB. That means at best they have space for 24 MB of textures in that ESRAM.Desktop gaming video cards have what, >1G video ram these days? Even "HD graphics" decelerators use 128...

For data in the ESRAM, yes. The XBox 360 has 10 MB of eDRAM which is functionally the same. The XBox One should be able to do something like 'free' 4x MSAA for a frame buffer in it. The problem is that such buffers would monopolize most of the eSRAM. There would be little left over for textures, or code.

One other thing is that for being on die, the ESRAM is quiet slow. I would have expected bandwidth figure near 1 TB/s.

Rough calculation: two 720p frame buffers take ~8 MB. two 1080p frame buffers take ~16 MB. That means at best they have space for 24 MB of textures in that ESRAM.Desktop gaming video cards have what, >1G video ram these days? Even "HD graphics" decelerators use 128...

For the Xbox 360 at 32 bop, yes, those numbers are a correct approximation. Though it is not clear if the Xbox One gets to cheat with precision like the XBox 360 did. There was a special 32 bit HDR mode on the Xbox 360 that used three 10 bit floating point numbers plus a 2 bit alpha. That mode isn't available on PC cards based upon the same GCN architecture. That means for HDR, a frame buffer would be 16 MB. The z-buffer wouldn't change. So that'd be ~24 MB out of 32 MB considering a 1080p default resolution. The left over 8 MB in many cases would likely be used for another 32 bit buffer for a deferred renderer.

I wouldn't expect the eSRAM to be the main source of video memory. Remember that the Xbox 360 had 10 of eDRAM and did rather well for its time using the 512 MB of main memory to store textures and other graphics data. The Xbox One will do that same with its 8 GB of shared memory. Memory capacity isn't much of an issue. The only question is if there will be a bandwidth bottleneck to it.

edit. My take on this nonsense. It is way too early to make a stand about this console in my eyes. On the other side it is good that that they annonced all this stuff prior to E3, so that they can only focus on games there. Or at least thats me hoping. Yes they made bit of mess by not being prepared to answer the questions about used games and online requirements. Also Kinect and the TV is stuff is not for me and that is fine, as long as there are plently of interesting games in future. As pointed out here it might have been better if all the non-gaming stuff had been detailed after E3, or a separate event there.

Just to clear up one thing - as I understand it, the jump in Sony share price was not to do with the Xbox, rather a report was released that Sony were considering spinning off the entertainment unit, the linked article actually states this:

"investors on news of a potential spin off, pushed Sony shares up 9 percent, coincidentally just after Microsoft announced its answer to the Sony Playstation."

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.